Film and Video has become important graduate and undergraduate programs at the Pratt Institute with a growing student body but, until recently, working out of make shift spaces in the basement of the school’s gym. Competing with other well-known institutions in the New York area for the best and the brightest in students and faculty, Pratt realized that its instructional and production facilities had to be commensurate with its ambition and, without a doubt, state-of-the-art.  Based on the unqualified success of its recently completed Myrtle Hall project, Pratt turned again to think! to create the new best-in-class facility on a highly expedited schedule and challenging budget.

The space available for the new facility was a pre-engineered shed building with 15,000 square feet of column free space and previously the home of the Pratt Store. Think! conceived of the space as not only an up-to-the-minute, high tech facility, but more importantly as a place of learning where opportunities could be created outside the classroom for student/faculty and student/student interaction, innovation and creativity.  The facility was designed as a series of freestanding objects – two sound stages, post-production suites, sound recording and screening room – allowing for a variety of interstitial spaces for informal meeting and collaboration.

The Film/Video Department sits at the northeast corner of the Pratt campus where it fronts both the school on one side and the busy community shopping street, Myrtle Avenue on the other.  This fortuitous siting creates a perfect meeting place where school and community can mix using film and video as a forum for social, academic and intellectual interaction, activities very important to the school’s mission.

Think! had the rewarding opportunity to collaborate on this project with Pratt architecture professor Haresh Lalvani, on a series of elegant perforated, sculptural metal panels wrapping the entrance lobby and cladding a number of the free standing rooms.

The project allowed Pratt to double its enrollment in the Film and Video Department and advance its reputation within the industry.